Everyone Brave Is Forgiven

London, 1939. The day war is declared, Mary North leaves finishing school unfinished, goes straight to the War Office, and signs up. Tom Shaw decides to ignore the war, until he learns his roommate Alistair Heath has unexpectedly enlisted. Then the conflict can no longer be avoided. Young, bright, and brave, Mary is certain she'd be a marvelous spy. When she is, bewilderingly, made a teacher, she finds herself defying prejudice to protect the children her country would rather forget. Tom, meanwhile, finds that he will do anything for Mary. And when Mary and Alistair meet, it is love, as well as war, that will test them in ways they could not have imagined, entangling three lives in violence and passion, friendship and deception, inexorably shaping their hopes and dreams. Set in London during the years of 1939-1942, when citizens had slim hope of survival, much less victory; and on the strategic island of Malta, which was daily devastated by the Axis barrage, Everyone Brave is Forgiven features little-known history and a perfect wartime love story inspired by the real-life love letters between Chris Cleave's grandparents.

Opinion

From Library Staff

From the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling LITTLE BEE, a spellbinding novel about three unforgettable individuals thrown together by war, love, and their search for belonging in the ever-changing landscape of WWII London.
Shocking her blueblood political family by volunteering for the... Read More »

This is a very entertaining read. The characters brought to life with their sarcastic British humor, but are also flawed, and the main basis of the novel is essentially a study in how imperfect our lives are, and that of society, when even faced with enormous challenges, revert to basic instincts and prejudices. What sins are permissible even in a deathly struggle? What portions of our society are worth saving, which are abhorrent? The fact that one of the main characters' pre war career was to restore paintings plays nicely with the story. Also, I shall never open a jar of preserves without appreciation again.

The friendship relationships in this one were truly special. I enjoyed the witty dialog and the subtle use of deep affection and loyalty to develop them. However I found the romances to be tedious and overly complicated. The coverage of the WWII bombing of London and the prejudices suffered by African Americans was interesting. There were some well written parts but mostly I felt the emphasis was on moving the story quickly along, sacrificing meaningful moments that might resonate with the reader.

There is no end to the amount of World War II fiction that is available and I have read a lot of it. Yet each book seems to offer a different perspective or experience of the same story and I never seem to grow tired of it. Everyone Brave is Forgiven takes the chaos of the war and then zooms the story down to 4 individual lives. 4 friends who all have their own unique personal journey through the war but who connect in ways that I found very touching. It demonstrates the impact of war not only on the personal level but also on the person's role in society. Where do we fit? Where do we belong, and how does the war change all the rules?

I know I'm at odds with most reviewers but Cleave's terribly clever British repartee is infuriatingly phony, like fingernails screeching on a blackboard. Were there ever living people who talked that way? If so, I'm happy not to have met them! And then there are sentences such as: "She supposed that nature had no provision for conkers beyond the earnest expectation that boys in knee shorts would always come, world without end, to take them home and dangle them on shoe laces and invest each one with brash and improbable hope." Pardon me, but what in God's holy name does that mean?
As for the characters: A quartet of prigs.
Yes, the book has garnered positive reviews; Its merit begins to emerge 80+ pages in. But the style, the language, the characters, none of it appeals to me and the annoying aspects overwhelmed it.

Reminds me a LOT of "All the Light We Cannot See." Lyrical writing, changing narrators, and a compelling story moving between wartime London and the island of Malta, both under siege by the Luftwaffe.

brianreynolds
Dec 20, 2016

Chris Cleave’s Everyone Brave seems to want to be about the horror of war and the bravery of upper class English families during the early months of the London Blitz and the siege of Malta. What it doesn’t seem to be about is either the wrongness of war or the evil of Fascism or the belated involvement of the USA. Instead the author pokes once again at racism and class while constructing a bleak but absorbing archetypal comedy. While the outcome of the romance between the two fairly naive but adorable characters is seriously predictable from the start, the obstacles to be overcome are quite rightly so serious that in the end... Well, there’s no point in giving everything away, is there? It’s well-constructed, well-written (lovely in places) and well-meant. The blight of early 1940’s discrimination deserves a spotlight. Personally, however, that seemed ironic. My American father quite proudly credited that war with changing his views on race 180 degrees—for the better. But that’s an entirely different book.